


It’s How You Land

by BlackEyedGirl



Category: Leverage
Genre: Community: helpsomalia, Complementary Talents, Multi, POV Female Character, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackEyedGirl/pseuds/BlackEyedGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot thinks that any job that involves Parker and Hardison building something is a bad idea. Hardison is confident in his construction skills but has issues with certain aspects of the plan. Parker is just looking forward to getting this thing in the air.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It’s How You Land

**Author's Note:**

  * For [podfic_lover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/podfic_lover/gifts).



> This was written for podfic_lover for helpsomalia and is extremely late :( My prompt was [floating house](http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/upinspired-floating-house-14), however, which was a great prompt!
> 
> Any relation to Season 4 canon, or the laws of physics and engineering, is entirely coincidental.

Parker is pretty sure Nate is about to suggest stealing the sky. She is largely in favour of this, although Eliot seems less than impressed.

Eliot asks, “Are you honestly telling me this is our best plan? You’re supposed to be the damn strategist, Nate, and you don’t have anything we couldn’t get from a Looney Tunes cartoon?”

“The one with the road runner?” Parker asks.

Hardison says, “This feels more like a Bugs Bunny plan to me. Road Runner always did more dropping from stuff, not so much flying.”

“Well he runs,” Parker points out.

Eliot clenches his jaw. He bangs his hands on the countertop and then says, “Nate.”

Sophie coughs quietly. “He does have a point, Nate. Even for us, this is…”

Nate raises his eyebrow. “The actual con is straightforward. The access is the only complicated part. And Hardison thinks he can pull it off.”

Hardison makes a face. He hadn’t really said he could do what Nate wanted; he had just said that it would be awesome if he could.

Parker says, “I can help.”

Hardison looks at her. “You can?”

“Sure. It’s all just ropes and weight. I know those.”

“Those two,” Eliot says. “Building something that needs to hold together _in the air_. This is gonna end really well.” He walks away from the table. “Call me when you need me.”

Nate watches him for a moment and then says, “Okay, let’s go steal-.”

Sophie puts her hand over his mouth. “Don’t even think about it.”

 

* * *

“Rich people have weird hobbies.” Parker lies on the floor of her warehouse and watches Hardison.

“Parker, your hobby is stealing priceless works of art and then returning them when you get bored. You also jump down elevator shafts for fun.”

“So?”

He shakes his head. “Forget it.” He sketches a rough rectangle on the floor with chalk. It’s about the size of a van.

“What’s that for?”

“Just to get an idea of size.”

“That’s pretty big.”

Hardison shrugs. “If you’re gonna do something…” He trails off, evidently expecting her to fill in the rest.

“What?” she asks. “If you’re going to do something, what?”

“Do it right.” He grins at her. “Go big or go home. That’s practically team policy, girl, where have you been?”

Parker rolls up to her feet. “Here.”

“That wasn’t a…” He shrugs again. “Never mind. You want to give me a hand here?”

Parker is still not entirely sure what he’s trying to do, but she nods.

He points at a block. “Move that over to the corner. Thanks.”

“Are we building a _trailer_?”

“We’re building a floating house, to enter in the weird rich guy's exhibition of floating things. Granted, our house might have a few superficial structural similarities to a trailer.”

“Or a van,” she suggests.

“Or a van.”

“We should name it.”

Hardison looks at her. “You don’t name a thing til it’s finished. What if we called it something that didn’t work for it later?”

“Then it would get a new one. Like us.”

He smiles. “Guess so. Still, I’m not feeling anything yet. You?”

Parker looks at the sketched outline, and the blocks to support the frame. “Not yet.”

 

* * *

They get back to Nate’s covered in dust and chalk, and Eliot glares at the pair of them. He says, “You know this thing has to keep the two of you afloat, right? Solder and duct tape ain’t gonna do the trick.”

Parker tells him, “We know,” and then, “It hasn’t got a name yet.”

“What doesn’t?”

“The flying house.”

Eliot sighs and goes back to the kitchen. He likes to chop things when he’s angry.

Nate was right about the plan not being very complicated. Castleton is a bad guy. He loans money to vulnerable people, demands it back at double the interest he promised, and then blackmails their family over the unpaid debts. Their client had a kid in hospital and a pile of medical bills. So Sophie is going to keep the mark busy, Nate and Eliot are going to play officious safety inspectors, and meanwhile Parker and Hardison are going to just fly right into his office and steal the papers. Well, they’re going to fly over his house, and then Parker is going to swing right into his office. As long as they get the flying house built on time. But Eliot shouldn’t worry.

Sophie stands beside Parker. “Hardison isn’t getting…? He goes a bit overboard sometimes.”

For a moment Parker thinks she means that literally, and is going to explain to Sophie all the precautions they’re planning to make sure that neither of them fall out. Then she realises. “No. We don’t have time for him to do that.”

“No,” Sophie agrees. “So you should keep an eye on him.”

There was a time, not very long ago, when Parker wasn’t trusted to keep an eye on anyone. She nods solemnly.

 

* * *

Hardison is sitting in the middle of the chalk lines with his laptop. There are a lot of cables running towards him.

Parker asks, “I thought we were building?”

“We are. Were. I’m just working out the comms.”

“Shouldn’t we-?”

“Maybe some cameras.”

Parker thinks this is probably what she was supposed to be watching out for. She pokes his shoulder. “It needs to fly.”

“I know it does, just let me- fine, fine. Hang on.” He scrambles off the floor, wires sliding from his lap. Hardison moves the laptop out of the way of the construction. He says, “Floor first, okay?”

They start moving things. Most of the pieces are already there, which reassures her slightly. Hardison claims that they’re just remodelling a mobile home, not building one from scratch. They need to cut it down, and make it ready to tie the balloons too. There are still a _lot_ of pieces, and he’s muttering vaguely about the possibility of the heavy frame breaking through the lighter pieces and cutting the whole thing in two. That sounds like a bad plan.

She’s shifting a large piece of wall, with Hardison on the other side, when one of them loses their grip and the whole piece starts wobbling towards her. She barely has time to shout before it is caught and effortlessly put to rights.

“Easy,” Eliot says, “I’ve got it.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Hardison says, “Hi to you too, can somebody give me a hand with this before my arm falls off?” He doesn’t seem so surprised to find Eliot there. Parker is used to Eliot being able to sneak up on her four times in ten, but she hadn’t been expecting him today. He’s still kind of annoyed about the flying.

He is here anyway. In Parker’s world, that counts for a lot. She gets a better grip on the sheeting and they move it into place. When he can safely let go, Eliot stands and looks at Hardison for a minute.

Parker whistles and, when Eliot turns towards her, she throws him the hammer. He catches it before he thinks to give her his best ‘what the hell’ look. She says, “You don’t like it when I throw things at you without warning you first.”

His expression is more surprised than pleased but as Parker was just stating a fact, she doesn’t ask questions.

Between the three of them, they get the basics of the frame together. Parker points out where the ropes need to go to keep everything level when they’re in the air. Eliot holds nails between his lips and grins around them sometimes when she’s not looking. Hardison wanders between the two of them with wires, talking to himself or them or the thing that they’re building.

Eliot asks, finally, “Hardison, what the hell _is_ all this stuff? Nate said in and out. You need to get into the computer systems, I get that, but this looks like-.”

“Lucille,” Parker says. “One of the Lucilles.”

Hardison shrugs. “A man never knows what he’s going to need on a job. I’m just being prepared.” He sticks up a poster on the inside of one of the walls, over where he is planning to secure the laptop. Parker recognises the big blue box in the picture.

It is true, Parker guesses, that on their jobs they turn out to need all sorts of unexpected things. But she doesn’t think that’s what this is about. Hardison likes building homes.

 

* * *

Nate asks, “How’s the construction going? Everything going to be ready for Saturday? Because I think it needs to be then.”

Hardison’s eyes go wide. “Is everything going to be- Saturday, he says. Is everything going to be-?”

This thing is running over the whole weekend, and he and Parker had assumed they had until Sunday morning. Saturday is going to be difficult, as Hardison tries to explain to Nate.

Eliot cuts him off. “Sure it will. We’re working on the balloons and stuff tomorrow. Plus we need to figure out how to get this thing over there.”

“I’m working on that,” Nate says. “And I’ve got the cover.”

Sophie corrects him, “ _I_ have that.”

“Sophie has that,” Nate agrees without pausing.

She also has a new hat, Parker notices – a grey one with a brim. Sophie dips it in their general direction. She says, “ _I_ have already convinced Mr Castleton that I am a freelance writer who has an extensive history with such fine publications as National Geographic and New Scientist, and that I am terribly enthused about the exciting world of amateur dirigible competitions.”

“Flying houses,” Parker checks.

“It doesn’t really need to be a-.” Nate says. He looks at Hardison. “-but you’ve made one anyway. So that’s fine. It just needs to fly well enough that we can have it accidentally end up over Mr Castleton’s estate. Apparently it happens every time. Someone even had to do an emergency landing in front of his house a couple of years ago.”

“How long has he been hosting this thing?” Eliot asks.

“Ten years,” Nate says, “and his father before that. It’s a big deal – he’s the one that turned it into a weekend event. People come from all over.”

“It’s weird,” Parker says.

Hardison says, “I thought you wanted to go flying?”

Parker likes flying fine, and she is looking forward to trying out what they’ve made. It’s not really about the flying. She says, “I like jumping out of things.” Hardison doesn’t. He doesn’t much like flying, or heights, and he definitely doesn’t like jumping off things. But he’s building this anyway. Because she likes those things, and even if it scares him, he doesn’t try to stop her. Sometimes he comes along for the ride.

When she looks at him, he’s grinning wide. “I know you do,” he says. “And soon we’re going to be _mobile_.”

Parker is always mobile, but she knows what he means.

 

* * *

They spend Friday taking things apart and putting them back together differently. Parker and Eliot work on steering and all things mechanical. Hardison is doing something to increase the range on the wifi and also attaching various things to helium canisters. He sends a wrench floating across the room tied to a balloon string.

Parker pokes it. It bumps against Eliot’s shoulder. He turns around. “What?”

“We’re not going to be able to test this.”

“No,” he agrees.

“Not until we’re out there.”

“We’ll get you parachutes.”

“Hardison doesn’t like parachutes.”

“Let me worry about Hardison.”

Parker wants, a little, to say okay, but she doesn’t. She says, “I- He doesn’t like it.”

“I know.”

They’re going to be very high up in the air, in something Hardison designed, and Parker doesn’t think he has realised that yet. He’s going to realise it when they start filling the balloons out there tomorrow, and this takes off. Or doesn’t take off. That would be worse for the job but maybe better for Hardison.

Eliot nods. He says, “We’ll distract him right before.”

“How?”

“I’ll think of something.”

Eliot is good at that kind of thing. Not in the same way Nate is – the way he holds all of the pieces in the air right until the last minute. And not like Sophie, who uses words the way the rest of them use knives or picks. Eliot says, ‘I’ll think of something’ and that fits solidly into the world. Eliot doesn’t lie to make people feel better.

 

* * *

When they get back, Nate is pacing back and forth across the apartment.

Sophie spots the three of them. “We have a bit of a problem.”

“What happened?” Hardison asks.

“Castleton was robbed last night.” Nate stops at the bench.

“Someone beat us to it?” Parker is not impressed by this.

“No, no,” Nate says. “It was just an ordinary- they broke through one of the French windows, set off the alarm, police were called. He and his wife were out at a party, so they think the burglars knew that.”

Eliot says, “If someone was sniffing around the place, we would have seen them.”

“True,” Nate says, “but I don’t think we can go to the police with that. Anyway, they could have been following his wife in town to see where she went, and then let the rest of their team know. The point is-.”

Sophie cuts in, “He’s increasing security at the event. Especially around the house. I’ll be fine – I’ll have a press pass, but it’s going to be harder getting you two near the house, and if something goes _wrong_ , trying to get Eliot into the grounds to help you is going to be almost impossible.”

Eliot frowns like this is an insult to his skills.

Hardison just shrugs. “So Eliot can come in with us.”

Sophie looks at him. “Hardison, that’s a whole other person, you can’t-.”

“What?”

Parker shouldn’t have to explain this. “It was just supposed to be you and me. You can’t add another person and expect it to work the same way.”

Hardison opens up his laptop and starts typing. He says, “I did all the calculations, remember? The extremely complicated flight simulation I wrote and ran in about sixteen hours of solid programming? I figured Eliot might end up with us sooner or later.”

“Hardison.”

“I’ve run it for all five of us too. Just in case.” Hardison rolls his shoulders back. “I don’t make one person getaway plans.”

It takes Parker’s breath away, just for a second. She sneaks a look at Eliot because- she still does make one-person plans, and she knows he does too. Honestly, Parker thinks there’s a good chance that Sophie has a couple of aliases she keeps in reserve too, just in case. But Hardison doesn’t think that way. And it gives Parker an odd pain right there in her chest.

Hardison taps the back of her hand, not able to see her thoughts on her face. “It’ll work better with Eliot too, right?” he asks. “You can still do your thing.”

She nods.

Eliot says, “Sure, it’s better with the three of us, if you can get the maths right.”

Hardison grins wide at both of them. “If I can get the maths right, he says. When have I ever lead you wrong? Everything’s going to be fine.”

 

* * *

They get maybe ten feet off the ground before Hardison starts freaking out.

Parker waves at Sophie out the window, watching her pretend to be a journalist who is watching the three of them through her camera. They probably look pretty cool from down there – it did end up looking like a little metal house, hung underneath more balloons than Parker bothered counting. Hardison probably knows, but he doesn’t look in the mood to answer questions right now.

Eliot is sitting beside Hardison on the floor. He says, “What happened to ‘we’re going to be fine’?”

“Oh, that got left down there on the ground. Where it’s safe.”

Parker looks at Eliot. “You promised.”

“I what? Oh. Yeah, I guess I did.” He hunts around in his pockets. “Here.”

An unwilling smile tugs at Hardison’s lips. “Gummy frogs?”

“Yeah, well. I could have brought real food, but I figured you’d prefer-.”

“You could have brought a picnic.”

“Next time.”

“There will be no next time.” Hardison is firm about this.

The trailer judders a little under the balloons, and Hardison squawks. Then Nate is talking in their ears. “Castleton is with Sophie. How far away are you three?”

Hardison leans over his laptop. “Ten minutes. Maybe. I’m not used to factoring wind speed into my timings.”

“Do it anyway.”

Hardison grumbles under his breath at Nate, and settles down against the wall. He focuses on the screen, and looks to have forgotten where he is. Arguing with Nate is apparently a better distraction than candy.

Parker looks out of the window again. Eliot makes a few adjustments to their direction and comes to stand beside her. She says, “You could have kissed him.”

“Parker- what?”

“As a distraction. Instead of gummy frogs.”

“That’s not really the kind of thing we-.”

“I’ve done it.”

“To distract _other people_ , Parker,” Eliot says, “it’s not the kind of thing you do with- and it’s definitely not the kind of thing _I_ do with-.”

“Why not?”

He shrugs, one-shouldered. “I don’t think it would have calmed him down.”

Parker considers this. Probably not, but when _Parker_ has kissed Alec, it definitely distracted him from whatever he was thinking about beforehand. Calm is overrated: what matters is channelling your energy towards useful things. Like kissing, and stealing things.

Hardison is saying, “We’re just about in position. Okay, here. Parker, are you ready?”

She’s already gone.

 

* * *

She had to wait for a while on the end of the rope, and then in a tree, waiting for Hardison to get into the cameras and make sure she’s at the right window. She also had to watch him and Eliot conduct a mimed conversation with someone on the ground outside the house, Hardison wearing a big fake smile as he tries to communicate that they’re a little off course but they’re working on it. Eventually, she’s allowed to go for her entrance.

Having successfully swung herself over a low tree branch and onto the windowsill, Parker looks through the glass. “Nobody home.”

Hardison calls, “You're clear,” through the earpiece. She picks the lock and opens the window quietly. Castleton's computer is sitting on the desk, so she sticks Hardison's USB stick into it and waits.

Parker whispers, “Nate?”

“Hardison, can I get visual?”

“Streaming to your phone now.”

“Okay, good. Parker, take a good look around. Slowly, please.”

“We're looking for books, right?” she asks.

“Possibly. If it's not on the computer, he must have the records in this room somewhere. Any evidence of a wall safe?”

She goes tapping around the walls until she finds it. “Oh, this is too easy. If you were a paranoid extortionist, would you not get better equipment?”

He doesn't answer her, but she already knows that if Nate were a paranoid evil mastermind, he would do much better than this. If he wouldn’t, she wouldn’t be working with him, and she tells him this. Nate laughs a little. "So you can open it?" he asks.

“Give me a minute.” She starts listening for the click.

In the faraway place that doesn't involve slowly turning dials, her team are raising their voices.

When the door of the safe swings open, she hears Eliot say, “Right, distraction it is.”

“Eliot, what the hell are you-!” Hardison has lost his calm.

“We need to get Parker out of there before one of those guys-.”

“You think I don't know that? It's what you're planning on doing with that _flaming_ gas canister that's concerning me. How did you even make that happen? It had _helium_ in it. Helium doesn't do that!”

“I improvised.”

“Eliot.”

“You made your preparations, I made mine.”

“Eliot!”

Eliot says, “Parker, you got what you need?”

Nate has the pictures. He says, “That'll do it. Eliot, are you sure you can-?”

“I'm sure.”

“All right. Sophie, there's about to be some excitement over at the house. Stay in character, we might have a better chance of delaying Castleton that way,”

“Of course!” She laughs lightly - she must be with him now.

Eliot says, “Parker, as soon as Hardison gives you the word, I need you to get to the other side of the house. We're gonna fly right around and get you, but you need to be ready to jump. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” she says. “What're you doing with the fire?”

“Distracting some people.”

Parker looks out of the window. A piece of debris falls past it, trailing flames. Lots of people start running towards it. It’s only a little fire really. Although it’s followed by a few more of them. She wonders how many things Eliot has found to burn.

Eliot calls her name. “Go now.”

She runs.

Hardison says, “Up the stairs right in front of you, then swing a left. Now right. Okay, hang there for a second. We’ll be right around.”

After a minute, the end of the rope bangs against the window. Parker opens it and crouches on the sill. She looks up. Eliot beckons her impatiently and she starts to climb.

When she gets back in, Parker notices the bruise on Eliot’s cheekbone. “What happened to you?”

Hardison answers. “He got into a fight while hanging from the damn rope. Like a pirate, or a ninja, or some other someone with a strong desire to die stupidly while falling from great height.”

“How were you at great height if you were punching someone?” Parker asks.

Hardison makes to answer that. “Oh, don’t even get me stared on- mmph.”

Eliot kisses him.

Parker considers this a plan well executed, but she’s still curious about the mid-air fist-fight. She tries the comms. “Nate?”

He answers, “Yeah, Parker, are they…?”

“Kissing. Yes. Who’d Eliot fight?”

“There were some guards on one of the balconies, Eliot thought they were making a pass around to Castleton’s office… guys?”

Hardison pulls back from Eliot and manages, “Going off comms for a minute or two. Here if you need us.” He taps the keyboard and then turns to Eliot. “What the hell, man?”

“You needed a distraction.”

“And you thought that was the best way?”

“I’m out of gummy frogs.” Eliot meets Hardison’s eyes, and doesn’t look away.

Hardison’s face makes a complicated move from confused outrage into something Parker can’t decipher. He says, “Okay.”

“Yeah?” Eliot nods. “And…?” He looks at Parker.

Then Alec is looking at her too. He says, “Ask her.”

Parker isn’t completely sure what they’re asking. Sometimes they overcomplicate things. She tells Hardison, “I told him he should have kissed you first.” She had been right.

“Yes, but _you_ , Parker,” he says. “What about you?”

Parker already knows that her kisses will distract Alec. She supposes she hasn’t tried with Eliot yet. She tiptoes across the floor to him - “Here” – and tugs his head down.

He’s a little shorter than Alec, so Parker doesn’t have to lean up so much, and when she musses his hair with her fingers he makes a low noise in his throat. She pushes in a little closer.

When she pulls away, they’re both still staring. She asks, “What?”

“Nothing,” Hardison says. “Absolutely nothing. Okay, we need to land this thing and then… yeah. Okay.”

“Good,” Eliot says. “Now can you turn the earbuds back on before Nate starts thinking we crashed?”

Hardison makes a face. “Don’t even talk about crashing. You know those guys could have _shot_ at us?”

“That’s why I punched them out first.”

Sophie’s voice interrupts. “Finished joining the Mile High Club have we?”

“We’re not that high up.”

“Figuratively, Parker, sweetheart, although I suspect you knew that.”

She had.

Sophie says, “Should we do the grand dénouement without you, or do you plan on landing some time soon?”

“We’re landing,” Eliot says. “Just as soon as Hardison stops screwing around with the controls.”

“I’m not- I am not _screwing around_ here, I am calculating some extremely complicated pieces of- which you would know, if you paid any attention when I-.”

“No more freaking out,” Eliot says.

Hardison takes a breath. “You’re right. Because apparently you two came prepared for that. Could have warned a person, but I guess there’s no accounting for-.”

“You complaining?” Eliot asks.

“No. No complaining here.”

“Good,” Parker says. She smiles. “We have plans.”

Hardison says, “That’s maybe one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever heard, but you know what? I’m gonna go with it. You know why?”

“You’re smarter than you look?” Eliot asks.

The two of them argue about this for a moment, until Eliot notices that she is leaning out of the window, and then they start arguing with her instead. Parker isn’t going to fall – she’s better than that and anyway they have too much to do. They haven’t even named this thing yet.


End file.
